• Tudsamfa@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    28
    ·
    12 hours ago

    Inspired by the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, Michael L. Smith did us all a favour and answered the obvious follow up question on which body parts hurt the most when stung. He had honey bee guards sting him in 25 locations, multiple times to account for variability, over 38 days.

    Results:

    The three least painful locations were the skull, middle toe tip, and upper arm (all scoring a 2.3). The three most painful locations were the nostril, upper lip, and penis shaft (9.0, 8.7, and 7.3, respectively).

    He and Schmidt were awarded with a shared Ig Noble Price for their efforts.

      • Tudsamfa@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        6 hours ago

        75 bees actually, 3 rounds of stinging.

        A sting from a honey bee is familiar to many because of its world-wide distribution. The sting can be reliably provoked, and standardized, making it an ideal experimental stimulus. Furthermore, its rating as the center point of the Schmidt pain scale suggests it may be a useful standard. The present study therefore used honey bee stings to determine whether sting location impacts painfulness, and how painfulness varies by location.

        Reads as: honey bees are cheap to acquire and I ain’t letting no hornet sting my private parts.

    • VivianRixia@piefed.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 hours ago

      As a trans woman, can confirm, getting electrolysis on the upper lip is the stuff of nightmares. i can’t imagine something as big as a bee stinger hitting you there.